4 ms·

I suspect that this originated from the era well before computers were a common part of life and intended to relate to purely mechanical things, and the statute

I suspect that this originated from the era well before computers were a common part of life and intended to relate to purely mechanical things, and the statutes were just applied to computers when they started to appear in court cases. So e.g. a mechanical time clock or mechanical scales etc were probably the sort of thing that was the target of the original acts. The assumption is they are working correctly if they appear fine. This makes sense for basic mechanical things, and there is no point arguing that actually the scales that weighed how much the truck weighed were wrong/defective only that one time Defendant X used it and never again afterwards, and it was not in fact due to Defendant X being negligent that the bridge collapsed due to an overweight vehicle etc As we know, computers are a different level of complexity. Being wrong randomly for one off things is very possible.

rswail 2y ago
Sorry? There have been departments of Weights and Measures for literaly millenia. They have required certification of those sorts of items with regular inspections and anti-tampering seals. So yes, you can challenge evidence from mechanical scales, if they haven't been properly inspected and certified at the required intervals under the regulations.
- mattlondon 2y ago
  Exactly that is my point - so for the example of some mechanical scales, if they have all been properly inspected and certified, then you can expect them to be reliable and accurate. So in a case, if there is evidence against someone that relies on the scales doing their job properly, and those scales have been inspected and certified, then you probably do not have a valid argument to say "ah yeah but the scales the defendant used might have not been working properly when they used them!". I.e. the accepted assumption is that the scales work correctly. Up until recently the same sort of assumption was given to computer systems from what I can tell. This is how we got into the Post Office scandal situation where people implicitly trusted that the computer was doing the right thing.
  - rswail 2y ago
    The problem was that the same sort of assumption was made without any basis in reality. If there's no "inspected and certified" then there is no officially recognized evidence that the system is accurate.

rswail 2y ago

Sorry? There have been departments of Weights and Measures for literaly millenia. They have required certification of those sorts of items with regular inspections and anti-tampering seals. So yes, you can challenge evidence from mechanical scales, if they haven't been properly inspected and certified at the required intervals under the regulations.

mattlondon 2y ago
Exactly that is my point - so for the example of some mechanical scales, if they have all been properly inspected and certified, then you can expect them to be reliable and accurate. So in a case, if there is evidence against someone that relies on the scales doing their job properly, and those scales have been inspected and certified, then you probably do not have a valid argument to say "ah yeah but the scales the defendant used might have not been working properly when they used them!". I.e. the accepted assumption is that the scales work correctly. Up until recently the same sort of assumption was given to computer systems from what I can tell. This is how we got into the Post Office scandal situation where people implicitly trusted that the computer was doing the right thing.
- rswail 2y ago
  The problem was that the same sort of assumption was made without any basis in reality. If there's no "inspected and certified" then there is no officially recognized evidence that the system is accurate.